3D Printing Might Make Gun Regulation RIAA vs. NRA

Restricting intellectual property may be some legislators' best weapon in the fight to regulate guns.

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In the 3D-printed future, politicians who oppose the NRA might do best by aligning themselves with the RIAA if the YouTube takedown of a video of Defense Distributed's Cody Wilson successfully firing the first all-3D-printed gun is a harbinger.

The visual evidence of Wilson's triumph, the greatest marketing tool he has, has been pulled by a claim from Warner Chappell, copyright holder for Patrick Cassidy's "Funeral March," which played over footage of him firing the Liberator.

Lawmakers who have opposed Wilson's project to 3D-print guns, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) among them, last month faced the defeat of a bill designed to enact several gun-control measures. But their backing of restrictions on the use of intellectual property, including their sponsorship of the Protect IP Act (the PIPA half of SOPA/PIPA), might be their best shot in their quest to regulate guns.

Wilson's intention goes beyond 3D-printing guns, which is just what he calls "a very clever way of unpacking the ideology for people." His goal is the dissolution and dismantlement of the state and his reason for that is to limit what he sees as the centralization of power in the world.

Wilson feels that the commotion caused by the Liberator and the YouTube takedown that's related to RIAA-related regulations shows the hand of politicians. "[T]hey're demonstrating to some of the people that know that they're reactionaries and that they would like to control and manage the future, and that's not what this technology means," he said specifically about 3D printing but which applies to his views regarding all technology.

Hours after I spoke to Wilson last week he received a letter from the U.S. Department of Defense Trade Controls to remove the plans, which were already spread far and wide across the Internet, from his site Defcad.org. And yesterday he found the YouTube takedown notice in his email. That came as a surprise, he said today, because he believes his use of the song fell within the rules. The song, it should be noted, is featured in its entirety from nearly a dozen accounts on YouTube.

"Either way, this is good," he said. "I just don't think there can be property in ideas." Wilson believes everyone should be able to remix something and make it their own without the hindrance of copyright. "We made something and fundamentally it was its own statement, it was its own thing, worthy of being seen and of being known," he said about the Liberator video. And while the video he posted was removed, there are many other videos up that show him firing the Liberator, complete with the snippet of "Funeral March."

One person Wilson did not expect to face off against over intellectual property issues was Kim Dotcom, who's been on the wrong side of the RIAA more than once. Dotcom pulled Defense Distributed's CAD file for the Liberator from his Mega hosting site, though he founded Mega for those who wanted to protect files from government spying. He told TechCrunch, "I think it's scary that people can print 3D guns that can't even be detected by metal detectors." Dotcom's many libertarian supporters have turned into his critics over his handling of Defense Distributed's files.

And that's the biggest effect technology, including 3D printing, may have on society. It's not in what it creates but in what it destroys: the false dichotomies propagated in U.S. politics. First Amendment versus Second Amendment, blue state versus red state, RIAA artists versus NRA members, all blown apart with a single-shot, 3D-printed gun.

Chandra is senior features writer at PCMag.com. She got her tech journalism start at CMP/United Business Media, beginning at Electronic Buyers' News, then making her way over to TechWeb and VARBusiness.com. Chandra's happy to make a living writing, something she didn't think she could do and why she chose to major in political science at Barnard College. For her tech tweets, it's ChanSteele.
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